Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have painted themselves into a corner. They failed to negotiate a treaty with Cowichan Tribes, so they got sued and lost in Richmond. Now the Prime Minister says he will advance “viable legal arguments to protect private property”, but the Liberals told their lawyers not to argue the primacy of property rights at trial. By now, it must have dawned on them that an argument not advanced at trial is not viable on appeal, because the minister just told us he is asking private property owners to do their work for them.
The Liberals talk about negotiation, but the failure to negotiate is how we got here in the first place, so what are they going to do?